Snowfall

[smokingboot]

We're supposed to be celebrating at a local restaurant tonight, and it's looking very unlikely. R's only just over this virus (for so I shall call it, given that Covid has failed to manifest on two tests) and this is not celebration weather.

Meanwhile news: the local council wants to close the Community Centre. Offhand I can see ways around this. There are several trusts and sub-committees, why not meet in one of the local pubs or shops with some venue space, and put brass in the pockets of the town's trade? But pubs don't have appropriate video/audio facilities for those who can't physically get there, and they don't have lifts/easy means of access for those with mobility issues. Just as important, the local community centre contains the only library. I don't know if they mean to include that in their plans for closedown. What they want is for local groups to rent or buy the space.🙄

Right now I have neither agency nor understanding so best suspend judgement til there's more information. This goes for everything including fretting over Putin and Trump and all the rest of it. A column in The Times screams 'Putin's threats bring back my teenage fears of nuclear annihilation'. I just can't go there. If annihilation comes, hopefully it will be quick. I remember the 80s and Threads and When The Wind Blows and all the rest of it, and I had to shrug then because being quite a simple creature, I live in the evernow. Early 80s I was in Edinburgh and remember a time when scoring heroin was as easy as buying a pint, every doorway held a vendor. Moved to London, each day my journey took me under Waterloo Bridge with its suburb of cardboard boxes full of runaways and vagrants. In those times I could dismiss missiles in the sky because I am OK at navigating dreams, even bad ones. Reality on the ground is much tougher.

I can't be scared today because I'm watching snowfall and it's beautiful.

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

Yes, it's very hard to teeter on that particular edge. I tend to fall onto the annihilation side because I've never been able to focus on the present very well. But I wish I could break the habit.

[smokingboot]

It's a very understandable habit.

[asakiyume]

Why do they want to close it down? You say they want local groups to buy or rent space ... so they have no sense of public space for the public to meet as a good thing? They want only private spaces? Things are bad in that way here too, but at least in my corner, there's still a sense that a town needs to maintain some public spaces for people to meet.

I can't be scared today because I'm watching snowfall and it's beautiful. --keep that feeling.

[smokingboot]

Re the posited closures, my instinct tells me this is about money. A few rumours abound re many local councils being on the verge of bankruptcy, but as to the truth of it... we've yet to find out.

The feeling has gone with the thaw, but it will return!